Month: March 2015

A year ago (March 31st to be exact) I wrote a story on this blog about a woman beginning to smile again. I had aptly named her journey in a series of blogs; The Face of Leukemia. The Face was my beautiful wife Jacy and leukemia was on the ropes. Jacy was still ill, but she was fighting hard and it showed. Leukemia was losing..

This fight lasted until May 13 when I wrote another story on this blog in reference to “The call”. Leukemia was gone, her body clean, a smile permanently returned to that sweet face. Jacy won, she kicked Leukemia’s ass and did it the only way she knew how, with faith and a smile on her face. She then spent the next several months battling to rebuild a body stripped of strength and muscle tone. She spent many nights frustrated, angry at an inability to focus, remember, and keep simple tasks straight. Jacy remained determined to finish her teaching credential and did so with the usual grit and tenacity that I fell in love with so many years ago. It was not easy by any means and a few times we butted heads over what was best for her during this time of recovery.

August came and a teacher regained her classroom, starting a new school year off surrounded by children she loves, her colleagues and a purpose. Our family regained their daughter, mother and wife. It hasn’t been easy, nights worrying if “it” will come back. The slightest hint of a sniffle or sore throat brings mind gripping fear. Her brain turning, churning wondering if she was just tired from a long day or has “it” returned? Is she really angry with me and the kids or is fear crippling her emotions again? Is that sweat or fever induced paranoia? Five years clean we just need to make it five years clean and then ten! Yes if there is any human being on this earth that can not only meet but exceed these expectations it is my wife! The former face of Leukemia. The face of victory, the face of WINNING! The face I love….

Enter Thursday March 12.

Earlier in the week prior to a simple operation to help with her ongoing iron deficiency, it was suggested she report for a standard blood draw. This would give doctors a good baseline prior to the operation. Within a day, results were in and the operation was off. She was to report on Monday for a bone marrow draw, further testing to confirm or deny what the numbers were showing. Stay calm I said, don’t worry I said, it will all be fine, you will be fine…..

Thursday March 19

Like a bad dream it rolled in disguised as a Honda Odyssey; at the wheel one spouse returning from work. Once again just as before while working horses I was about to receive the news. She walked slowly towards me as I saddled a horse for one of the boys, touched my arm gently upon reaching me and asked; would you care to go for a walk? The blood drained from my body as I knew. Like knowing a relationship is over, or the police aren’t at your house, knocking on your door selling tickets to the annual ball. I knew! I knew and asked her to just spit it out anyways. The look in her face, the light dullness of her eyes, and the sound of her voice slightly cracking. She let it all out. “It” was back…

I knew.

Leukemia had reared its ugly head once again. It wanted a fight and brought a few friends with it this time. According to Jacy’s doctor some of the cells looked different, so more tests were in order. She had until Monday. Four days to get herself and her life in order. Four days is an eternity and not enough time all rolled into one. She told me two days later it felt like an imposed prison sentence and these were her last few minutes on the outside.

We talked for a while about moving forward, and staying positive. Deciding when to inform our immeidiate family and how to tell our children. We hugged a lot and agreed that keeping life as normal as possible for the children could only benefit them during this time. Not that anything was handled improperly last go around, but we now have experience with what to expect during the many transitional phases of this journey. The eldest children were notified first with Cody agreeing to come home for the summer. The little ones were told the next day as to get them through the school week without incident. Everybody did their best to put on a brave face, but really no child should have to do such a thing when it comes to their mom.

Jacy and I set about trying to schedule things out over the next few months. This fight, this new fight was going to be harder, viler while wreaking greater havoc on her body over the last time around. It wasn’t just going to be chemo therapy either, a bone marrow transplant, talk about stem cells and living at Stanford for up to four months. This was for real, no easy cake walk for any of us, but especially for my wife.

Parents stepped in, friends have stepped in, and we are continually surrounded by some of the most gracious people I have ever met. I don’t know how to handle it at times, my manners not so contained. I have never been good at asking for help, my demeanor has always been one to help, one to fix, one to be there for someone else. Accepting or asking for help then standing aside has never ever been a strong point for me.

But I am thankful, so very thankful and with only being one week in, I am already exhausted. Not that I have anything to complain about, because I don’t. We have up to 5 more months to go, a routine will emerge and I will settle down, letting go of certain responsibilities, solely focusing all my efforts on our children and my wife. I don’t know how I will ever repay the love and support shown my family, but I will find a way and do my best to carry forward this giving spirit. Thank you all so much, my chest hurts thinking about the magnitude of it all…

Jacy started Chemotherapy on Tuesday the 24th. As before with a smile on her face, surrounded by wonderful nurses at Kaiser who remembered her and her endearing spirit from less than one year ago. One nurse cried when she found out Jacy was coming back. She felt for sure it was over the first go around, and upon seeing the name was overcome with emotion. She is one of our favorite’s nurses and there are many. The hospital and staff are simply amazing. Being in the business I am it is hard to leave my loved one in someone else’s hands, but here there is no doubt. Her light shines brightly upon all who come in contact with her, doctors and other nurses stop by just too say hi, check in on her and have a little conversation with the patient who smiles so brightly. My wife is truly one of a kind, it is humbling what she brings or gives to everyone she touches.

The sad reality of it all; Jacy sits in a room with no where to go, listening to machines all day long, she cant roam to far, cant be outside for too long, is tied to a rolling I.V. cart with up to five different medications pushing through her veins at one time, and with it each day brings a new level of sickness. She has Wi-Fi, Trivia Crack, Words with Friends, books, family and friends on call. But all she thinks about is her life at home, feeling no control over its future, what’s happing in her absence, missing out on interactions with her children and wondering when she will regain control of that life.

Like this:

Over the years my wife and I have spent countless hours helping our children to succeed through both word and deed.

It takes no shortage of creativity, knowledge, a sense of humor and occasionally some good old-fashioned ass kicking to solidly seat things into our children’s thick know it all skulls.

A week ago a new low had been reached in our household, the bottom if you will. All was going reasonably well, homework becoming finalized before an upcoming work week, and yes I can hear a collaborative parental moan now: why wasn’t the homework done Friday night? No excuses, no answer other than it is just the way we roll here at the BCR (Black Cloud Ranch) if it isn’t last minute well then it wasn’t worth doing!

One of our boys, oh hell why beat around the bush; it was the fourteen year old! Anyways he just doesn’t seem to grasp the importance of Algebra! Seriously Algebra! Algebra is the very basis for all math we will NEVER EVER USE AGAIN IN OUR ENTIRE LIVES!!! It might as well be stinking cursive! Who the bloody hell uses cursive or ever thought cursive was so freaking imperative? Isn’t Cursive like the Beta video of language expression? Oh sure I have seen many hybrid versions, you know a mix of block lettering, plain print and cursive. But really in the end it is as useful as a chocolate tea-pot!

Algebra was the very bane of my existence as a freshman in high school, and it appears to be a genetic learning disorder! Yet Jake has one glaring ace in his pocket for which he refuses to take advantage that I never had at my disposal! His mother teaches math! I know right? Mom teaches math! HELLLLOOOOOOO????? You say you don’t understand math, ask your mother politely for assistance and well, 1+1=uh an easy freaking A! But no, Jake stands before his mother, arms crossed as though he was in the center of a Law and Order episode awaiting his lawyer! This boy, this hard-headed, rodeo driven boy, has been given a free ride for way too long based upon his dimples and charm, yet at home his mother and I see the poop thrower from three years of age. His dimples purchase no currency at the parental store of effort and trust. Mom continues teaching, Jake continues fighting the process. My teeth are grinding and my inner voice hears our beloved dentist God Bless her soul telling me to let it go before irreparable damage is done!

Finally after many witty and not so witty exchanges take place mom has hit the wall, this lad has more excuses for why he cannot learn the Pythagorean Theorem than a desert has sand! Who doesn’t understand the relation of lengths in three sides of any right triangle! Right? RIGHT! Ah Duh!!!! (Ok truth be told I didn’t know what it was either until this fight, but hey enough about my adult ignorance!) Yet a no learning wall is up, affixed, complete with eye rolls, heavy sighs, and the occasional slack-jawed look of stupidity.

This entire process of enlightenment and denial was finally broken when my wife, teacher of equations and mentor with wit, creator of interesting theory and conclusions nonchalantly threw out a reference as to the design of her latest mathematical problem looking a tad bit like boobs! Yes you heard me right BOOBS! Brought forward in that casual oh look what I accidentally drew they resemble BOOBS, kinda way! Every teen boys dream! Men and women alike can agree that BOOBS are pretty freaking cool! Right? Hey I won’t lie, I looked! She said BOOBS for Christ’s sake!!! But instead of a chuckle, juvenile laugh or smirk our sense of humors, no matter how imperfect for the moment (seemingly appropriate I might add) were greeted with teenage loaded snide sarcasm and cynicism!

NICE! Now I am not referencing “NICE” in relation too, eyebrows wiggling, crooked grin, hey there look at that or creepy stalker nice; oh nooooo. This was a thoroughly disgusted, grossed out, want to vomit because my mom referenced a girls private parts “nice”.

What the hell! Its boob’s son, no matter how big or small all girls have them! Even some men! How in the hell can you treat it as though it is a dirty word? BOOOOOOOBBBBBSSSSSSS! See rolls off the tongue! Remember when we had the sex education talk and we made you say PENIS, PENIS, PENIS- VAGINA, VAGINA, VAGINA? You thought that was a freaking riot! Red cheeks and all! So what gives? Wait is this because you think we are automatically referring to you moms boobs? Well heaven forbid your mom, a WOMAN has boobs! Or is it because you cannot stand looking at boobs in front of your mom? Well then we have done something wrong if you are ashamed of the female body and all its glorious shapes, curves and dimensions in front of another woman! What is it? No son of mine is going to ramble on with some form of weird embarrassment over a hand drawn set of circles that look conspicuously enough like a set of boobs! (+)(+)

Then it dawned on us, he saw two circles, we saw two circles, he still remained steadfast in his attempt to thwart any assistance given by his mother, his mother remained steadfast in breaking down that wall. Hence forth two circles that once were nothing more than an equal equation in a math problem became the nucleus for an excuse. By acting as though we had stained his little eyes, burned an unwanted image into his brain, leaving him to die upon the sword of our humor amidst an assumed embarrassment. He believed homework time would be over, a byproduct of our apologies for such inappropriate behavior on our parts. Crying at the table, head in our hands, relished to failure as parents for our poor lack of judgment, he could leave the table thusly going about his evening bypassing another painful night of math while feeling as though he finally got the upper hand!

Hmmmm in retrospect, quick thinking young grasshopper! I am impressed at how fast you grabbed ahold of an opportunity to exploit a situation hoping for instant benefit and gratification… In many instances this quick thinking may have brought forward a prosperous outcome. This would not be one of them!

Being confronted with adversity in your life is inevitable. Just keep in mind that it does not have to defeat you. Adversity is often short lived. Giving up is what makes it permanent. As a certified fitness professional, this blog is my way of helping you feel capable of anything.